GREECE
Youths hurl gas bombs
A group of 25 hooded youths hurled gasoline bombs at an Athens police station on Saturday and set cars and motorbikes on fire, injuring three bystanders, authorities said. The attackers fled toward an open-air market and knocked two policemen off a motorbike, the official said. “They set the motorcyle on fire ... the tank exploded and people who were nearby were injured,” the spokesman said, adding that a man and woman working at the market and another bystander were injured.
ITALY
Ham dispute turns violent
Four people were hospitalized in Tuscany on Saturday after a dispute over the thickness of a supermarket’s ham slices turned violent, the ANSA news agency said in a report. The row broke out when a 50-year-old woman shopping in the town of Livorno protested that the ham slices being cut by a counter assistant were too thick. A scuffle unfolded involving the shop assistant’s father as well as the woman’s husband and two sons. Police were called and three ambulances were also sent to the scene. The shop assistant, the disgruntled shopper and her husband all suffered bruises and were treated in hospital.
UNITED STATES
Sprayed bag causes scare
A dog that wasn’t quite housebroken may have indirectly been responsible for a bomb scare at a New York courthouse. The trouble began on Friday when 19-year-old Melvin Ruffin arrived at a court complex in Central Islip following a long bus ride from his home in Bellport. During the trip, another passenger’s Chihuahua urinated on his backpack. So, he stashed the wet bag in some bushes while he went inside to answer a disorderly conduct citation. However, a retired police officer saw the bag and alerted security. The bomb squad was ultimately called in. Officers used a robot to determine that the bag didn’t contain anything harmful. Ruffin told Newsday that he was let off with a warning to be more careful about where he leaves his stuff.
UNITED STATES
Man died of hypothermia
Authorities in Oregon say hypothermia and starvation caused the death of a man whose body was found months after his truck got stuck in heavy snow. Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller said an autopsy was conducted on the body of Jerry McDonald on Friday, one day after it was discovered in his pickup. It was on a dirt road 6.5km from Marion Forks, in the Cascade Range foothills. Authorities said they found a calendar marked with McDonald’s notes that showed he became stranded on Feb. 14. The last entry was on April 15, about 60 days later. The body was discovered nearly a week after hunters found a Canadian woman who was stranded in remote Nevada for seven weeks.
MALAYSIA
Pigs to be tagged
Kuala Lumpur will give locally reared pigs embedded identity discs in a bid to stop the illegal slaughter and distribution of meat unfit for human consumption, reports said yesterday. This follows the revelation by pork sellers association chief Goh Chui Lai on Friday that unhealthy pigs were being slaughtered at illegal abattoirs, resulting in unhygienic meat being distributed nationwide. Veterinary services department chief Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin told the New Straits Times that radio-frequency identification discs would be placed beneath the skin of each pig in order to track it.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was